1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to air circulation systems for generally enclosed structures such as homes having a floor and wall portions.
The present invention more particularly relates to an improved heat transfer and air circulation system for homes and like construction wherein use is made of a non-heat conductive aggregate structural circulation medium capable of both supporting the home and transmitting circulating air from the home through the air spaces in the aggregate medium to enable heat transfer to take place between the air and the adjacent underlying soil mass and between the air and the adjacent overlying slab or floor of the home.
2. General Background and Prior Art
In homes and other like constructions, fossil fuels or other energy is spent usually in the form of generated electricity for heating and cooling of the home. The average home requires energy which is ever shrinking and ever more expensive for its comfortable climate control.
There is a need for a more efficient system for heating and cooling the home which will allow it to be more efficiently and less expensively temperature controlled without the excessive use of electricity, fossil fuels or other consumed energy.
Most homes are of a slab type construction, meaning that the home sits on a probably four to six inch thick mass of concrete, which is poured on the ground (and some distance below in many cases) providing a structural support for the home. Other secondary support such as piling can communicate with the slab to provide a structural base which will not sink under the load of the home and the slab itself.
In most climates, the temperature in the ground under the slab differs from the temperature of the atmosphere around the home and is at or close to the temperature desired in the home. For example, during the heat of the day the soil beneath the home is usually many degrees cooler. Further, in the winter the outside air is usually much cooler than the ground a few inches or feet below the ground surface. Indeed, it is recognized that a "frost line" exists below which pipes and other matter will not freeze.
In summer, a few inches or feet below the slab of the home cooler temperatures exist than in the atmosphere around the home. Usually, the earth or soil at the frost line has a relatively constant temperature all year long.
It would thus be desirable to circulate air through a medium provided below the home and return it to the inside of the home to either supplement the existing cooling system in the home or provide the total cooling system therefor. In winter, heating could be accomplished by circulating air taken from the home to the relatively constant temperature earth, and returning that air to the interior of the home.
Many devices have been patented, which have attempted to solve the problem of air circulation and climate control within homes and similar inhabitable constructions. Many of these devices have provided a medium of some sort beneath the ground through which air can be circulated and heat transfer effected.
Some prior art devices require complex structural support for the home or construction. Others do not have adequate detention time provided by their circulation medium for the circulated air to effect proper heat transfer. Still, others require deep excavations or complex equipment, or both, and thus would be difficult and expensive to install.
In the heat transfer media provided or suggested by some prior art devices/systems, heat conductive material is used, allowing premature heat transfer to occur before air currents reach the underlying earth. Thus, "hot spots" are created in the circulation medium.
Some systems suffer from undesirable heat transfer to or from the surroundings.
Heating or cooling of the floor area which contacts sensitive human extremities (as feet) is not achieved by prior devices without inefficient and expensive supplemental conventional heating or cooling.